It was a night when there is no sound. The insects are dead, the birds have gone South with the other members of the higher circles of society; there was only the rattle of the heavy cart, springless and jolty, along the dusty road that wound like a great horseshoe around the long slope of the ridge that shot up suddenly into "Paradise Hill." Beyond the river a dog barked, a mile away, and ended in a melancholy howl. Ramon shivered, and drew his blanket around him; he had a superstitious fear of that sound. The mountains in the North never seemed so high and dark before. Then they saw that it was a cloud, black, sullen-looking--great masses of vapor heaped in billowy folds, blackening the slopes with shadow, and barely touched above with silver-gilt. "Looks a little like a storm to-morrow," said Harry. No one answered him. The chatter had somehow died away, and they were more intent on keeping warm than talking. It wasn't all their fancy painted it--this clear, cold moonlight; it was icy. "Never mind, boys!" cried Charlie Brown cheerfully, as they drew up at an old hop-house by the side of the road, and got out stiffly, "we can howl now if we like, and nobody to hear." But nobody wanted to howl. They did want to get up the slope to the edge of the woods, where the sugar-house was, and putting horse and cart together in the shed, they scaled the fence and started up the hill at a lumbering trot. Now that their beds were so far away they were sleepy enough. As it happened, just as they struck the fence, a brisk, elderly gentleman, with iron-gray hair, and spectacles, and a queer twinkle in his eye as he glanced up at the mass of clouds piling up in the mountains, walked hurriedly down a narrow sheep-path through the leafless woods, and entered the sugar-camp. It was dark in there,--dark as Erebus; only in two or three places a ray of light streamed down through the holes in the roof. The gentleman in spectacles glanced around serenely; as though it was quite the thing for him to be wandering around in the woods at that unearthly hour; poked at the roof here and there with his cane, knocked up a few shingles that let more light in on the subject of his investigations, and came out again hastily as he heard the boys approach, and disappeared in a clump of spruces. Five or ten minutes afterward, he suddenly appeared at the bottom of the hill, backed the horse out of the shed, put on the bridle, and removed his blanket, sedately got in and drove quietly home. Charlie Brown was the first up the hill, and heralded the sight of the camp with a cheer. "Now then, lively! Out with your jack-knives and off with a lot of spruce boughs!"